Should You Quit Your Job?

Love it or Leave it; How do we increase job satisfaction?

“…for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” -Steve Jobs

You’re probably here because you’re considering quitting your job. Maybe the thought has merely skittered through your mind or maybe it’s rampaging. It’s also possible that quitting your job isn’t something you’ve entertained yet. Regardless of where you are on this spectrum, deeply contemplating why we choose and stay at the job we have, how to navigate the challenges there, and what’s important to us in the work arena of our lives can have a big impact on our well-being (once we align with those realizations, of course!)

The truth is that quitting may in fact be the best course of action. But it’s really difficult to tell. Because it’s so hard to know, for sure, that quitting is the answer to our issues, we can wind up subjecting ourselves to unhealthy circumstances far longer than necessary.

Quitting Is Trending

In the wake of the COVID 19 Pandemic a term coined by organizational psychologist Anthony Klotz rose to the forefront of popular dialogue to capture the phenomenon of an unprecedented number of workers leaving their jobs: The Great Resignation. While there seemed to be similar trends in European nations, the Great Resignation was primarily a US occurrence, with a record-breaking number of 47.8 million workers quitting by the end of 2021 according the the US

Department of Labor (Statistica 2022) (SHRM 2022).

Various articles (1, 2, 3, 4) on the subject postulate that the high numbers were due to several factors:

• People who would have contributed to the normal statistical evaluation of quits in a year chose not to quit during the pandemic due to fear of insecurity and are now making their moves as things settle down.
• Several folks experienced an increase in burnout during the pandemic while demands at work increased due to the shifting economy (and the line between work and home dissolved for new remote workers).
• And most importantly, people had time and motivation to contemplate how they wanted to live their lives and what was meaningful to them during the pandemic. After re-examining their priorities in the face of international disaster, many people have decided that what they’ve been doing with their time wasn’t worth it.

But what makes a job worth it? What makes it meaningful?

Take the quiz to suss out how you’re feeling at work.

‘Worth it’ and ‘meaningful’ may or may not overlap as the key to job satisfaction for any given individual. People in these working situations may think their jobs are worth it:

The above examples illustrate a handful of different approaches to satisfying work.

You do not need purpose at work for your job to be worthwhile
Sure, the meaningfulness of our work is clearly the most direct path to job satisfaction. Unfortunately, operating solely on this wisdom misses several pieces of the puzzle. You do not need to live your purpose(s) through your livelihood in order for your job to be worthwhile. It’s partially a matter of understanding the function our job plays in the overall schematic of our lives and partially making sure some fundamental qualities of work are accounted for (which will be explained in Refine what your job is for, below).

Address the inner and the outer to increase satisfaction
Jonathan Fields, founder of The Good Life Project podcast, laments the potential fallout of The Great Resignation in his recent book, “Sparked: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work that Makes You Come Alive.” He worries about masses of people bypassing necessary internal changes by going straight for external ones (like quitting their jobs), and thus setting themselves up for future failure. Fields encourages his audience to make changes today – at their current jobs – so they can take that wisdom with them, rather than encountering the same challenging dynamics with their co-workers, boss, burnout and role issues a few years later at a different job.

You may not have to quit your job
When we’re unsatisfied at work, many of us easily understand that it’s time to change something. But does the entire job need to be that change? Maybe, but quite possibly not. Rather than jumping ship (often the only course of action that looks like it could salvage the situation) it may be time to sit down and get a fresh look at the landscape of work and purpose in your life all together. Understanding the expectations we have for our jobs to be perfect vehicles for fulfillment, joy, mastery, prosperity, and recognition, and how such expectations can hold us back, sheds fresh light on how to re-organize our approach to a fulfilling life. One’s job is only part of the recipe.

After harvesting with intention from where you currently are and making the adjustments you can, it may still prove imperative to move on, but at that point you’ll do so armed with wisdom that will prevent you ending up in a similarly untenable situation.

“Youngsters are told, “Think big. Anything is possible.” I would never go that strong. I want them to think positively, but when you think big you often start thinking too big, and I believe that can be very dangerous. Wanting an unattainable goal will eventually produce a feeling of “What’s the use?” That feeling can carry over into other areas. That is bad… We should keep our dreams within the realm of possibility— difficult but possible—and make every effort to achieve them.” John Wooden, American Basketball Player and Coach

What’s your definition of the Perfect Job?

• An easy job that pays well
• A job that pays the bills but doesn’t require long hours
• A job where I get to do something I love
• A prestigious job that I’m good at
• A job that directly impacts people positively
• A job with great coworkers, managers, and community
• A job where I’m the boss and have control

Any of these? All of these?

We hope for and often expect a job to fulfill a massive checklist of ideals:

Let’s rewind for a second to the basics: a job is fundamentally work that we get paid to do. How did it expand to be expected to serve so many diverse functions? For one, work has not only become a moral task in many Western cultures, it also takes up roughly half (or more) of our waking hours. We spend a lot of time at work and our industriousness (apparently) says something about our character. So it better be good, right?!

Well, Roman Krznaric, author and one of the founders of The School of Life, explains that having a fulfilling job is a relatively new idea in an article for Greater Good Berkeley:

“The idea of fulfilling work—a job that reflects our passions, talents, and values—is a modern invention. Open Dr. Johnson’s celebrated Dictionary, published in 1755, and the word “fulfillment” doesn’t even appear.”

Our perspective is likely distorted

These folks’ expectations impact their rate of success

Without the context of the real landscape before us, our expectations can easily become unrealistic and limit our potential for satisfaction.

So what is realistic, anyway?

The landscape doesn’t often mirror social media’s depiction that a hard work ethic and a little bit of luck will land us the job of our dreams. Research, planning, careful direction plotting, and more are part of creating more likely success. What is the real possibility of getting all the boxes checked for the average person?

The likelihood of getting a job you’re passionate about may come down to the niche quality of your interests, where you live, and your education level. Statistica compiled data to show what industries in the US and globally have the most availability of positions in 2020:

The below chart from Flowing Data offers an interesting look at the distribution of job types since the 1950s, showing that some industries (namely production and farming) have shrunk while industries like education and healthcare practitioners have moderately grown.

Want more?
Curious about some global trends?   ✺   Curious about some future trends? (Here, too)

In conclusion, finding a job that checks all the boxes can be a tough task; 

…and we’ve been taught it is a matter of perseverance or luck (or both!). This makes it simultaneously our responsibility but within the hands of fate–a contradiction that renders it challenging to be happy with our situation.

Our ancestors didn’t take the same responsibility for their life circumstances as we do; they often blamed the gods for unfortunate events. Interestingly enough, explaining negative events as beyond our control is healthier for our emotional well-being than blaming ourselves; unfortunately, it seems more common for modern people to do just that. The alternative is to choose to learn from such events and become empowered by them without blaming ourselves. No wonder we aren’t satisfied when we’re blaming ourselves for something we often believe we can’t influence!

Even if you check a few boxes, there are always more that could be checked. We end up with crippling (or at least mildly debilitating) FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) that poisons our ability to see what IS working in our jobs. It renders no job good enough.

There are two answers to tackling the conundrum of impossible standards in the Perfect Job; one is simple and the other a bit more complex.

1. The simple answer: Prioritize meaning in your work. It can make the most significant impact on your satisfaction. This might involve making the job you currently have better or getting a different job. See Don’t quit… yet.
2. The more complex answer: Learn how to prioritize checking certain boxes at your job and checking the rest elsewhere. This could be a matter of acknowledging and getting on board with the boxes your job already checks. See Refine what your job is for, and Don’t quit…yet.

By doing either of the above you’ll empower yourself to accept a job as good enough, or quite possibly empower yourself to cultivate something that meets or exceeds your expectations. If you keep scrolling you’ll arrive at those exercises in due time, but feel free to skip to them and learn away!

“Americans tend to valorize being driven and ambitious, so letting work take over virtually every moment of your life is concerningly easy. I know many people who talk of almost nothing besides their work; who are saying, essentially, “I am my job.” […] Love and fun are sacrificed for another day of work, in search of a positive internal answer to the question “Am I successful yet?” The great irony is that by trying to be special, we end up reducing ourselves to a single quality, and turning ourselves into cogs in a machine of our own making. […] You are not your job, and I am not mine.” – Arthur Brooks in The Atlantic

The third challenge we face with work satisfaction hinges on the pressure we feel to make it define us.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Contribution in this way has become a moral good. In a spirited New York Times op-ed article adapted from his latest book about the changing world of work and its place in society, John Malesic offers:

And it’s clearly commonplace to identify with our jobs. One survey of 2,000 millennials showed that 68% of participants identified with their jobs. While a strong sense of identity is healthy and motivating, throwing it all into our work can have its drawbacks:

• When the core of our identity is tied to our job, failures and challenges become much more personal and can feel more damaging because our self-worth is at stake.
  Quoted in a Harvard Business Review article, Dr. Paul Rosenfield, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University explained that, “Establishing your identity through work alone can restrict your sense of self, and make you vulnerable to depression, loss of self-worth, and loss of purpose when the work is threatened.”
• We can become more at risk for burnout because we feel we must always do more.
• Our lives can become one-dimensional; when we put the vast majority of our time and effort into our work, relationships and engagements outside of our jobs can suffer.

Arthur Brooks, author and columnist for The Atlantic, suggests asking yourself a few questions to determine if you’re at risk for over-identifying with your job:

• Is your job the biggest part of your identity? Is it the way you introduce yourself, or even understand yourself?
• Do you find yourself sacrificing love relationships for work? Have you forgone romance, friendship, or starting a family because of your career?
• Do you have trouble imagining being happy if you were to lose your job or career? Does the idea of losing it feel a little like death to you?

He goes on to say, “If you answered affirmatively to any or all of these, recognize that you will never be satisfied as long as you objectify yourself. Your career or job should be an extension of you, not vice versa.” (The entire article is excellent, by the way.)

There are a wide range of identities we can inhabit beyond those provided by our jobs. Dispersing our identity over multiple facets of our lives can be advantageous in that it makes us more resilient (our self-worth not being contingent on our professional success) and it also enriches our experience by diversifying it. Understanding how our job fits into our overall lives can help mitigate the inclination to make it our all.